Note: All links leave to external sites. Greetings, BugFans, In late spring, BugFan Sara sent some “Who-is-this-and-what-is-it-doing??” pictures—small “bumble bees” were excavating the outer surface of a clay bread oven in her back yard. (The BugLady gave Sara bonus points …
Note that all links leave to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, Here’s a pot pourri of articles about insects for your enjoyment. Bug Love: the BugLady is aware that some BugFans read Bug o’the Week selectively, skipping episodes like the one …
Note: All links leave to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, The BugLady is out hunting for insects and will be back in July. Here’s something to keep you out of trouble in the meantime. It’s a little-known fact that the BugLady …
Note: All links leave to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, The BugLady is always ambivalent about photographing flies, even when they pose nicely. There are a whole heck of a lot of species of Diptera (“two wings”) out there – 17,000 …
Note that all links leave to external sites. Greetings, BugFans, Isn’t this a pretty bee!!! When you aim your camera at a bumble bee, which the BugLady does frequently, you expect to see black and yellow in varying proportions (the …
Note that all links lead to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, Robber flies are a very cool bunch of flies that we have visited a number of times in the past. To appreciate the array of sizes and shapes and colors …
Note: Some links below go to external sites. Howdy, BugFans, The general rule of thumb is that if you want to find insects, look at flowers. Even though summer is fading, there are still flowers in bloom. Some Liatris/blazing stars …
Greetings, BugFans, The story of the Cuckoo leafcutter bee has several moving parts. It starts with the family Megachilidae (of recent BOTW fame), a large and diverse group of solitary bees that includes the leafcutter, mason, and resin bees, and …
May is American wetlands month, so we’ll end it in the swamp, in the company of Marsh Marigolds, the flowers that turn newly thawed wetlands a riotous yellow from the last days of April through much of May. Skunk cabbage and pussy willows may whisper the arrival of spring, but marsh marigolds crank up the volume. The BugLady should have started this project two weeks ago when the marsh marigold was at its peak, but the truth is that despite the masses of flowers it produces, she seldom sees many insects on it, and the ones she sees are as likely to be resting as dining.
The BugLady visited Riveredge Nature Center recently looking for adventure, and she found it even before she hit the trails. A dozen or so mining bees were flying around over a dirt bank near a bench – they were either nesting there or thinking about it (she came back a week later, and nesting was well-established). Mining bees are solitary, ground-nesting bees in the family Andrenidae, a large family with about 3,000 species, almost half of which are in the genus Andrena (there are 450 Andrenas in North America).
